


far beyond any other

by seventhswan



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationship, F/F, M/M, Post-Game, Spoilers, Wedding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 19:54:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5218775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhswan/pseuds/seventhswan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the princess has busted herself out of the tower, and the day has been saved, and the city is… Slightly charred but still standing, there's only one thing left to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	far beyond any other

**Author's Note:**

> This assumes a playthrough where Bethany went to the circle, Garrett sided with the mages, and everyone was loyal/lived (except Leandra/Malcolm/Carver, of course).
> 
> Warning for one mention of three canonical character deaths.

Bethany gets married in a long blue dress. She has no idea where her brother procures it from, so short a time after the final battle of Kirkwall, but she hugs him tightly around his middle in gratitude (and then loosens her grip a fraction when he makes a soft, winded noise – his ribs are still healing).

“It’s perfect,” she says, and it is. He’s found her something simple and lovely, a cool breeze of a dress, long enough to pool a little at her feet. Garrett makes a face.

“You should have had a confection,” he says, taking the edge of the long fluted sleeve and rubbing it thoughtfully between his fingertips. “A big frothy thing, all layers upon layers upon layers, and covered in lace and ribbons.”

“This has lace,” she points out, indicating the delicate edging on the bodice, and Garrett sighs.

“I suppose,” he says, grudging, and Bethany grins, bumping her shoulder against his.

“You can wear a frightful Orlesian-style meringue at your own wedding,” she teases, “if it matters to you so much, dear brother.”

He flicks her smartly on the arm with his fingernail.

“I can assure you, Hawke, I would have no complaints no matter what you wore,” Fenris says from where he has appeared in the doorway, arms crossed. Garrett groans out loud when Bethany giggles.

“And I am quite sure Bela won’t care that my dress has no flounces,” Bethany says. She pretends to think for a second, putting a hand to her chin and sharing a conspiratory look with Fenris, whose eyes are bright even as his expression is impassive. “In fact, she’d probably prefer me in the nu-“

“That’s quite enough!” Garrett interrupts, rolling his eyes as Fenris snickers under his breath. Bethany still gets a little thrill every time she manages to get a laugh from him.

“What a wonderful life I’m going to have, with you two teaming up against me,” Garrett sighs, but he can’t hide the smile threatening to twist his mouth.

It _is_ going to be a wonderful life, is the thing, and they both know it. Bethany feels her answering smile spread wide enough to hurt her cheeks.

|

It turns out that Fenris has been dispatched to deliver the message that Isabela’s ship is docked and waiting in the harbor, and it’s time to go.

Merrill catches Bethany on her way through the corridors of the Hawke Estate and puts a woven crown of flowers on her head, with a long white veil attached. It reaches almost to the hem of her dress and is embroidered with trees and leaping halla, the work so delicate that Bethany has to squint to see the shapes in the shining white thread.

“My mother was just wonderful with a needle,” Merrill says, smiling as she adjusts it to hang properly, her hands infinitely gentle. “This was one of the things she sent with me when I left to be Marethari’s First. It’s not a traditional part of the ceremony, but some of the girls in the clan wore it to be bonded.”

“Oh, Merrill,” Bethany says, overcome. She blinks her wet eyes, willing herself not to cry and produce the hideous full-face blush it always gives her. “It’s beautiful. I promise I’ll be so careful with it.”

“Finally, some froth,” Garrett says approvingly, clapping his big hand on Merrill's shoulder. She beams, and raises both her hands to lay them over his. “You look like a princess, love.”

|

The cleanup operation is still going on in the streets outside, and it’s an operation most of the wedding party will return to, but for now Bethany puts it all out of her mind. There’s nothing in the world, it seems, but the four of them dashing together through Kirkwall’s darkened streets, following the lighted lantern held high in Fenris’ hand. Bethany finds to her surprise that even after the years she spent locked in the Circle, her feet still know their way to the docks - would know their way even without Garrett’s hand on her arm, leading her.

It feels like a jailbreak, running together hidden under their cloaks, Garrett turning his hooded face deliberately away from the curious eyes of strolling prostitutes, his hand giving Bethany’s arm a little squeeze. Tomorrow he’ll be the Champion again, put on his mantle, talk to the new trickle of soldiers that are being sent to the city as aid, resume pulling things – and people, and cats, and treasured mementos – out of rubble, but for tonight he’s just her brother. It’s just them.

(He stayed with her in her room, the night before, and didn’t quite cry as he ran his hands over the undisturbed coverlet on the bed, the one that had lain stiff and waiting for her the years she was gone.

_Garrett,_ she said, without knowing how to finish, standing in her nightgown with her hair braided over her shoulder and feeling suddenly very young. _Garrett –_

She thought maybe she’d meant to say _is it okay, this? Getting married?_ To ask if it was okay to leave him, yet again. If he could bear it – if both of them would be able to bear it.

_It’s not forever,_ he said, like he’d heard her anyway. He kept his back to her, just tracing the pattern of the coverlet over and over. Two or three premature grey hairs had grown in at his left temple; she’d never noticed them before. _You’ll… You’ll come back. Isabela will keep you safe, or you’ll keep her safe, and you’ll both come back. Before – the Circle… Maker, Bethany, it might have been forever. I thought it was._

They curled together in the bed he’d bought her like they used to back – before Kirkwall, when it was cold at night, when the wind whipped outside and Garrett lay on his back between the twins, telling them stories. 

They left a space for Carver. On Garrett’s left, like always.

_Once upon a time,_ Garrett began in a stupid, self-consciously grand voice once they were settled. Bethany laughed the kind of tight laugh that came when the other option was to cry, and hit him with a pillow. 

_Seriously,_ he said, clearing his throat. _I have something to say to you about marriage, young lady._

Because Dad wasn’t there to do it, or Mum, Bethany supposed. She swallowed and tried to laugh again; surprisingly it was a little easier this time.

_I know about it all, brother,_ she said, feeling a heat in her cheeks all the same. _I’m twenty-eight now, it’s a little late for – for -_

He made a terrible face, and got her back for her earlier assault on him with the pillow.

_You know,_ he said, when she’d grabbed the pillow back off him and pitched it to the floor, _when you first told me about you and Isabela I had some trouble figuring out quite how you worked together, when you seemed so unalike. I miss those naïve, blissful days._

It was the night before her wedding, but it didn’t make Bethany too grown up to stick her tongue out.

_I didn’t mean _that_ anyway,_ Garrett went on, shifting uncomfortably. _I meant names. Convince Isabela to take your name, will you? Fenris is…_ (and there was that expression on his face, that fond look as though something inside him was subsiding, like sand sliding happily into the waiting embrace of the sea) _is going to take mine. We’ll be a…_

We’ll be a family again, Bethany thought. A family. Maker but they’d suffered and suffered and _suffered_ , and now the sun was about to come out. It was hard to believe.

_Bethany and Isabela Hawke,_ she said aloud, liking it.)

|

When they reach the docks and Bethany climbs up onto the ship, Isabela is waiting on deck in her usual garb, covered up by a ridiculous red velvet cape. There’s an even more ridiculous, utterly enormous pirate’s hat on her head, and oh, Bethany adores her. It’s been long years since she was the sheltered, overwhelmed apostate teenager to Isabela’s impossibly worldly pirate, but Bethany finds she loves her no less ardently. Bethany changes, but that never does.

The deck rocks infinitesimally under Bethany’s feet. Varric, Aveline and Donnic lift the ropes, and the ship floats a little way out on the almost still water, so Isabela and Bethany can be married surrounded by just the sea and stars. They’ll sail back later and dock again, move the party to the Hawke Estate for the night, but for now Bethany looks at the endless ocean and thinks of possibility, of the future, of limitlessness. Freedom.

Eventually she begins her walk across the deck, Isabela’s gold eyes burning into her. None of them are great singers and they have no instruments, but everyone gathered gamely attempts a co-ordinated humming (there’s more than one tune happening at once, but it’s the thought that counts).

When she reaches Isabela and takes Isabela’s hands in her own, Isabela smiles a true, wide smile, and murmurs, _hello, lovely one_. It sends Bethany back, far back, all the way to the beginning of this; to one night on the Wounded Coast under the moon, holding her hand out curiously against Isabela’s own, their palms pressed together. 

Bethany remembers being eighteen and really not knowing anything at all, but having this enormous, overwhelming feeling – this certainty that if she was going to fight, if she was going to lift her staff and cast, if she was going to struggle and work and fight and cry, and lose things, and make her peace with losing them, if she was going to fight harder, and fall, and get back up, and learn, and make herself faster, stronger, _better_ – it was for this, for Isabela’s palm under her own, that steady pulse. That promise.


End file.
